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MODIS ‘visible’ red band imagery was used to develop a scaled index of vegetation cover to assist land condition monitoring programs of the pastoral lands of the semi-arid and arid Northern Territory. Statistics and visual representations were used to analyse cover change through time. Initial assessment of cover change was made through time-series plots and sequence image movies. Further investigation to assess variability across individual land types used histogram plots of percentages of pixels and change detection from one image to another. Comparisons of cover were made between pastoral properties, and across land types with differences presented in both map and graph form. Outputs should inform and enhance existing monitoring programs that assess land condition.